Archery had its debut at the 1900 Summer Olympics and has been contested in 16 Olympiads. Eighty-four nations have competed in the Olympic archery events, with France appearing the most often at 31 times. The most noticeable trend has been the excellence of South Korean archers, who have won 23 out of 34 gold medals in events since 1984. It is governed by the World Archery Federation (WA; formerly FITA). Recurve archery is the only discipline of archery featured at the Olympic Games. Archery is also an event at the Summer Paralympics.

The second Olympic games, Paris 1900, saw the first appearance of archery. Seven disciplines in varying distances were contested. The next Olympics, St. Louis 1904, featured five archery events, but no athletes from outside the United States competed. At the 1908 Summer Olympics, three archery events were held. Archery was not featured at the 1912 Summer Olympics but reappeared in the 1920 Summer Olympics.

Between 1920 and 1972, archery was not contested at the Olympic games. The archery competition featured at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich consisted of a double FITA Round (from 2014 known as a '1440 Round') competition with two events: men's individual and women's individual. This form of archery competition was held until the 1988 Summer Olympics, when team competition was added and the Grand FITA Round format was used. Starting at the 1992 Summer Olympics, the Olympic Round with head-to-head matches was adopted and has been used ever since.

This table includes archery competitions in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1920. These four years preceded the modern, standardized archery competition under the rules of the World Archery Federation and were contested by three nations at most. In one year (1904), only the United States competed. Other nations that competed during that period were France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Great Britain.In some events in Antwerp/1920 bronze medals were not awarded.

Qualification spots in archery are allotted to National Olympic Committees rather than to individual athletes. The minimum age for an Olympic archer is 16. There are two ways an NOC may earn qualification spots: by team or by individual. For each gender, an NOC that earns a team qualification spot may send three archers to compete in that team event; each archer also competes in the individual competition. NOCs that earn individual qualification spots are limited to a single entry in the individual event.

For each gender, there are 12 team qualification spots: the host nation, the top 8 teams at the World Archery Championships, and the top 3 teams at the Final World Team Qualification Tournament.[1]

In addition to the 36 entries awarded through team qualification, an additional 28 individual qualification spots are available for each gender, bringing the total number of competitors in each individual event to 64. Of these 28 spots, between 5 and 8 are awarded at the World Archery Championships; because this event takes place before the Final World Team Qualification Tournament, individual spots earned by nations that later qualify a team are released. Additional spots (14 as of the 2016 Summer Olympics) are awarded through continental qualifying tournaments (these spots are also released if the nation later qualifies a team). At least 3 spots are awarded in a Final World Individual Qualification Tournament, with more available if spots were released by nations qualifying teams. Finally, 3 places for each gender are reserved for Tripartite Commission invitations.

For 2012, the qualification rules were adjusted slightly. The host nation continued to receive three spots, as did the top eight teams at the World Championship. However, only 8 further individuals qualified through the individual placement at the World Championship. The continental tournaments received unbalanced allocations, with Africa and Oceania receiving only two qualification spots to the other continents' three. The Tripartite Commission retained its three selections. The remaining 13 spots were decided by Final Qualification Tournaments. Three additional team spots (9 individual spots) were allocated through the Final Qualification team event, and the last 4 spots through the Final Qualification individual tournament. If any of the NOCs qualifying through Final Qualification had already earned an individual spot, one more spot as added to the individual Final Qualification quota.[2]

In the individual competitions, 64 archers compete. The competition begins with the ranking round. Each archer shoots 72 arrows (in six ends, or groups, of 12 arrows). They are then ranked by score to determine their seeding for the single-elimination bracket. After this, final rankings for each archer are determined by the archer's score in the round in which the archer was defeated, with the archers defeated in the first round being ranked 33rd through 64th.

The first elimination round pits the first ranked archer against the sixty-fourth, the second against the sixty-third, and so on. In this match as well as the second and third, the archers shoot simultaneously 18 arrows in ends of 3 arrows. The archer with the higher score after 18 arrows moves on to the next round while the loser is eliminated.

After three such rounds, there are 8 archers remaining. The remaining three rounds (quarterfinals, semifinals, and medal matches) are referred to as the finals rounds. They consist of each archer shooting 12 arrows, again in ends of 3 arrows. The two archers in the match alternate by arrow instead of shooting their arrows simultaneously as in the first three rounds. The losers of the quarterfinals are eliminated, while the losers of the semifinals play each other to determine the bronze medal and fourth place. The two archers who are undefeated through the semifinals face each other in the gold medal match, in which the winner takes the gold medal while the loser receives the silver medal.

The individual match system was completely overhauled for the 2012 Olympics, though the single elimination with bronze medal match format was retained. The matches now consisted of sets. Each set comprised both archers shooting three arrows. The archer with the best score in the set received two points; if the set was drawn, each archer received one point. The match would continue until one archer reached six points. If the match was tied after five sets, a single arrow shoot-off was held with the closest arrow to center winning.[3]

The team event uses the results of the same ranking round as the individual competition to determine seeding for the teams. The team's three individual archers' scores are summed to get a team ranking round score. The competition thereafter is a single-elimination bracket, with the top 4 teams receiving a bye into the quarterfinals. The semifinal losers face each other in the bronze medal match. In a team match, each archer shoots 8 arrows, with the best overall team score (for the total of 24 arrows) winning the match. The set format from the individual competition is not used.[4]